The bill would bestow a responsibility on the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to hold a consultation across the UK, and Mr Perkins suggested there could even be an “X Factor style programme” to select a song.

“It’s a beautiful song and it actually mentions and is about England, unlike its competitors,” he said.

He said people wrongly think it’s a hymn and also “object to the fact that it references a Middle Eastern city” but said these objections were “largely based on ignorance” as Jerusalem was a metaphor for a better place.

Using the UK anthem as the English anthem was an “unnecessary strain on relations between England and Scotland” in the wake of the independence referendum, he added.

“God Save the Queen is the British anthem and should belong equally to the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish,” he said.